Wings and Words
by articwolfgirl347
Summary: Fang comes from a high-class family and gets top grades. Max is homeless and constantly looking for a new adventure. What could two completely different people possibly have in common? Blanche High School, where both are loners. Oh,and they both share a secret: they have avian DNA.
1. Chapter 1

Okay, so technically it _was_ Max's fault that she'd started a forest fire. The DWR fire containment unit didn't have to hold her in custody until child services could be contacted and she could be placed appropriately.

Whatever the frick that meant.

In hindsight, she really should've just left a note instead of knocking on the department head's door (Google was great) in the middle of the night and telling him which area of the forest was on fire. She'd vehemently denied being the cause of it (hello, God? This is Max, where should I start apologizing?) and instead claimed to be a bystander. A bystander in the forest. A homeless bystander that just happened to be passing through the forest in the middle of the night. She omitted the part about having wings, being on the run from a secret bio-engineering agency, and conducting an experiment testing the results of different chemicals when they come into contact with a flame.

Max was curious, and she loved an adventure. She also hadn't had formal schooling since... ever. While taking refuge in a high school the other night, she'd decided to look around the place. The result was: the skeleton used in anatomy was creepy as heck and the locks on the chem lab were laughable at best.

Experiments were what you did in chemistry, right?

So that's how Max ended up in the DWR station. Max tightened the scratchy grey blanket around her shoulders that they'd given her for shock. It wasn't cold, but it helped to hide her wings. She watched as a constant flux of people flowed through, but there was never a time when she was alone and could slip out. She could push her way through, spring up and away, but that meant stories of a flying girl on the news, and freaky Erasers would follow. Max didn't want them on her tail again so soon. She'd escaped an Eraser conflict for months now.

A woman in a yellow blazer and a stiff black jacket walked in, heels clacking. She clacked over to Max and sat down next to her. "Hi, you must be Mariah Riddle."

"Yup, that's me," Max said.

"It's nice to meet you, Mariah. Do you have family nearby?"

"Would I be homeless if I did?"

The woman smiled wide. Whether she was holding back a laugh, or suppressing irritation, Max couldn't quite tell.

"I just want to help you, Mariah. Who is your guardian?"

"Beats me. I've been in foster care since I was seven. My parents died in Africa. Malaria." Also a lie, but she'd created a record of a fake persona precisely for such cases.

"Well, Mariah, it's been a long night. Would you like to come home with me?"

"Do I have a choice?"

The woman smiled again. "It would make us both feel better if you said yes."

Max rolled her eyes. "I guess."

The woman's name was May, and her husband David was a cop. They didn't have any kids, unless you counted the foster kids they'd had in the past. They even had neighbors' kids come and stay with them from time to time.

That sort of rotten personality was how Max ended up at school the next morning, freshly showered and wearing clothes that smelled like Target.

Fang's mom dropped him off for another school day. In their car, like a normal person. Even though a normal mom didn't drive a Corvette. Walking into psychology, he nodded at his psychology teacher, Mr. Fong. Fang didn't have friends because of two things: he hated talking to people, and could practically disappear. However, Mr. Fong could do all of the talking and was weird besides that, so he and Fang got along well. With his psychology class first thing in the morning, Fang could get through another school day.

Fang sat at the back of the class as Mr. Fong enthusiastically greeted every other classmate that walked through the door, pumping their hands and holding on to a handshake for a _little_ too long for people to feel comfortable. That was Mr. Fong.

"Hello! What's your name?!" Mr. Fong stuck out a hand as a new brown-haired girl entered the classroom.

"Mariah, but I go by Max." She frowned as Mr. Fong held onto her hand.

"Welcome Max, welcome, welcome," he said. "Take a seat." He released her.

She sat next to Fang at the back of the class, which was strange because when people did see him, he wore enough black eyeliner to ward people away from asking questions like how big his house was or how much his clothes cost.

"So, this class any interesting?" the Max girl asked him. Fang cracked a smile. She was in for a wild ride.

Fang left for chemistry after psychology, and was surprised when Max sat down next to him again. He raised his eyebrows at her and in response she waved at him. "What class is this?"

"Chemistry."

Her nose wrinkled. Then she smiled. Then she leaned her head against the desk and started chuckling. She went on for a good few minutes, and had to pound her fist against the table to stop.

Fang raised his eyebrows at her again.

"I've never taken chemistry before," she said, staring at the front of the room as the teacher began lecturing. " _But I have taken chemicals_." She choked on another laugh.

Max was the weirdest girl Fang had ever met. It was kind of refreshing.

-

"Hey! You with the face!" Fang turned to see Max running towards him with a cafeteria tray. As she caught up to him, she smiled. "Sorry, I never caught your name. I'm Max."

"Fang."

"Nice to meet 'cha, Fang. Where are you sitting for lunch?"

"I... usually sit in the psychology classroom."

"Mind if I sit with you?"

Fang shook his head and she accompanied him down the hall.

Before the turn for the classroom, though, they had to walk across the lobby. Some visiting professors from the local college were there to recruit interest in STEM fields, and a few were wearing lab coats while they showed off some tech they were working on.

All of a sudden, Max pitched forward. "Hey!" Fang said, catching her. Her lunch tray spilled all over the ground. Fang tried to pull Max up, but he couldn't. So he sank to the ground gently with her, ignoring the people who were gawking.

"Max?" he asked, watching her eyes as they stared in front of her at nothing. He gave her a shake. "Max!"

She jolted up and ran out of the school doors. Fang ran after her. Her tennis shoes flung against concrete, and Fang watched the back of her jacket. It was almost like he could see the outline of a very familiar lump on her back. One he saw in the mirror every day.

Nah, there was nobody else but him with a secret like that.

Max was in good shape- Fang was having trouble keeping up (he hated the outdoors but was good on the treadmill). Max didn't stop until she reached the nearby park and climbed a tree up high. Fang started climbing up the tree behind her, out of breath. "Max, what was that?"

"I-I don't like white coats," she said. "I can't see any from here." She sighed and leaned against a tree branch. "I forgot they have them in schools."

"You forgot?" Fang asked. "What school did you go to before here?"

"I was homeless," Max shrugged.

Fang shot her a look. "Were you in a gang?"

"What? No, of course I wasn't in a gang," Max said.

"Oh," Fang said. "Because, we should probably get going. This park is on gang turf."

Max looked around, noticing the graffiti for the first time. She shrugged. "I'm not going back to school."

"You're not?" Fang asked.

Max nodded. "I'm on my way headed south. It's warm this time of year there, and I want to know if everything really _is_ bigger in Texas."

"It's your first day of school and you're already leaving?" Fang asked. "How long has it been since you were last in school?"

Max sighed. "I've never been in school, ever." She leaned forward towards Fang, brown eyes glowing dark and intense. "Word to the wise? Don't trust adults."

Fang looked at her, wordless. They sat in that tree, quietly.

Finally, Max smiled. "You know what I'm going to do with my life, Fang? I'm going to have the greatest adventure anyone's ever had. That's why I picked out my name, Maximum Ride."

"I've never thought about what I'm going to do with my life long term," Fang said. "I like learning, but the stuff in high school is really dumbed down. I don't want to work in business like my parents do." It was the most he'd said to anyone in a long time. Fang kept his thoughts to himself, but he wanted to learn more about Max, more about himself.

There was another pause, as neither of them knew what to say.

"Hey... if you're looking for adventure, high school is pretty crazy," Fang said.

Max shrugged. "The crazy one is Mr. Fong. Does he really stand in the urinal next to you when you pee?"

Fang smiled. "Yup, he does." Fang nudged Max with his shoulder. "You know, if you leave school, I'm gonna miss you." They'd only know each other for the last three hours, but Fang already felt like he'd known Max for a long time.

"If I stay long enough," Max said, "it may not be my choice."

Her stomach growled, and it called Fang's attention to the fact that he could see Max's rib cage through her shirt. "You ever eat?" he asked.

"I bet I could eat more than you," she shot back. Her stomach growled again.

"If you come back to school, I will buy you lunch," Fang said.

"I could eat four of them."

"Then I'll get you four."

Max gave Fang an odd look. "Deal."

The only person who could eat as much as Fang was Max. He ate like an elephant; Max ate like a body-builder elephant. _On steroids_.

"I have a high metabolism," she explained on her third lunch tray, when she finally slowed down enough to talk while she ate.

"I'm not judging you for being fat," Fang said. Max's mouth quirked up.

"I have English next," Fang said. "You?"

"P.E."

-

The week flew for Max and Fang. But on Tuesday, as they were heading to lunch, Max froze next to Fang.

"What's wrong, Max?" he asked.

"Erasers," she whispered, and flipped around the corner. Which was the weirdest response Fang had ever heard of. Erasers were about as dangerous as marshmallows for one, and for two there wasn't like they were raining from above and pelting Max and Fang with 'em. Fang pressed himself against the wall next to Max, and threw up an eyebrow in disbelief.

" _Erasers?_ "

"Shove it. They're half-human, half-wolf hybrids."

A chill went down Fang's back. "Is this some kind of joke, Max?"

She looked him in the eyes, and he watched her pupils dilate.

"What do I need to do?" Fang asked.

"They're not harmful to you," she said. "It's me they're after. Look around the corner. Do you see those beefy guys that look like a cross between America's Next Top Model and world champion body builders?"

Fang looked around the corner. "Yeah. Max, chill out. Those guys work with my parents."

"Your parents?" Max spluttered.

"Yeah. They're not the smartest guys, but- hey, where we going?" Max had grabbed his arm and was pulling him the other way.

"Take me to your parents house," she demanded. "Those guys have made my life a living hell for years, and we're going to stop them."


	2. Chapter 2

"Where to?" Fang asked.

"Where do your parents work out of?" Max asked.

Fang usually avoided the office because his parents were boring in the office, and they didn't like him going in there. He had his own laptop and Iphone so why bother? As he sat down in the leather chair, he wondered if he could break his father's password...

A few minutes later, the answer was no, indeed not. However, all of the personal questions that the computer asked to confirm if it was him? Fang passed 'em all with flying colors. Maybe he'd finally found his true career as a computer hacker. What did that even pay? "Okay," he muttered, "where...?" He toggled through a few of the most recently opened pages before deciding to open up the hard drive. Max pulled a chair over to him. Fang opened a 10 gigabyte file labeled **Avian 56**. There were videos of him from his most recent checkup all the way back to his childhood. He opened up the first one that he didn't recognize as being from his physician's lab.

The grainy image was dark, but Fang could see a shiny outline on a few box-like objects. The lights flickered on in the video and illuminated them. Steel cages.

And inside them, a little Fang. Who didn't speak as men in a white lab coat approached him, but hissed instead. And next to him, in an adjacent cage, something screamed at the men as well. Or someone.

"It's-" Fang started.

"It's me!" Max interrupted. She pointed at that adjacent cage. "Those're my wings! Your parents do work for them. And..." she squinted. "That's you."

"It's me," Fang said. He stared at the black-haired, feral child. He'd been adopted when he was four or so, and he looked like he was about that age in the video. But four was not that small, so why didn't he remember this? Why didn't he remember _Max_?

She rested a hand on his shoulder. "Looks like this was our reunion, then, fellow mutant. Let's stick it to those fishheads."

Fang hunched over the keyboard to pull up some more files. "Wait, who's that?" he pointed to another cage. A lot of the cages in the frame were empty, or filled with still forms. But one of them had a panting blond boy- with yellow wings.

"There's another one?" Max said. She and Fang exchanged a look. "We've got to find him."

"Get in the car," Fang said. "Let's drive."

"Are you sure this will get us in?" Max said. Fang simply hauled left on the wheel and clicked a button on the sun visor of the Lamborghini. The gate swung open.

Fang's mouth quirked up, but inwardly his stomach coiled into knots. If this wasn't all an elaborate hoax- and the way his wings twitched told him it wasn't- then they could both end up Pavlov's dogs. Maybe for forever.

But they couldn't risk leaving the blond boy to fend for himself in here, either. If it had been the reverse, he hoped Max and this other kid would come for him.

He put the car in park and yanked out the keys. It was time to see how far Father's keys would take him.

"Fang," Max said, stepping up behind him. "Hold still." She slipped a pocket knife from her back pocket and flicked the blade open. She cut two jagged hole in his shirt, long and oval-like. "Just in case, be ready to do a U and A."

Fang tilted his head.

"Up and away," she clarified. He swallowed.

It was time to do this.

Fang unlocked the door and peeked in. He brought up his Iphone, which had a picture of the schematics of the building he'd stolen from his father's computer. The wonder of modern technology. The two hallways branching off were empty, so he tentatively closed the door behind them, save for a small crack. If the doors could automatically lock, he didn't want to be shut inside.

The hallway was white and smelled like vinegar. Fluorescent lights burned on them from above. Fang watched Max clench her teeth. On their left was a foot bath and some lab coats. Max threw one on and handed another one out to Fang. "I think I'll pass," he said. "I can always claim I'm looking for my parents; I've been here often enough for 'checkups'." He handed Max some goggles, though.

Max's face was pinched as she put them on over her eyes, and Fang remembered that she hated the white coats. Was _scared_ of them. And now she looked just like them.

Fang sucked in a deep breathe, and scanned his Iphone again. "The in-house experiment area is down this straight pathway and at the end of the hall on the right."

"Let's go." Max started down the hall with a purpose.

As they rounded the corner, they ran straight into two people. Fang's mother, a black-haired woman with an A-line hairstyle, and a bald, middle-aged man in a white coat.

"Nick?" she asked him. Fang stiffened, but forced himself to relax.

"Hi, Mother. I needed a consent form for school suddenly, so I thought I'd drop by and see if I could catch you," Fang said, and hoped it wasn't a bad lie.

"Oh sweetie, you don't need an excuse like that to come see me," she smiled, walking up to Fang with her arms extended out for a hug that he accepted.

As her arms wrapped around Fang, shocks rocked through his body. He had just enough time to cuss before everything faded.

Max shoved the woman back, careful of her taser. Fang cussed as he fell back, and Max caught him, lowering him to the floor when she realized he was unconscious. There was no way she'd be able to carry Fang until the whitecoats were taken care of.

She punched the bald man in the face while Fang's mom screamed for help. Max elbowed him in the throat. She flung him against a wall headfirst and he sank down. Max turned to Fang's mom who was holding the taser in both hands and out in front of her. As if that would help.

Max darted to the side and yanked one of her arms forward, kneeing her in the elbow and breaking the arm. She flung the woman down the hallway and grabbed Fang by the armpits, heaving him back up the hallway she came.

Two Erasers blocked the door. Max swore. She released Fang and sprinted towards the Erasers. Maybe taking the two head-on by herself would be easy. And maybe the moon was made of cream cheese.

The one on the right first. Max came in, ducking under his reach and slamming him in the throat. He grunted in pain, catching her right arm. Instead of trying to free herself, Max used her one free hand to gouge at the monster's eyeball. It was gross and squishy, kind of like a raw egg, and she winced as she ripped it out- or tried to. It was still connected to him by the nerve, like a strong piece of spaghetti. Ew, what a mental thought.

He screamed but held onto her arm as the other Eraser slammed her to the wall by her arm and pinned her by her throat. Choking, Max kicked him in the face. He held strong. She pushed to extend her wings, but even they were pinned to the wall.

'Suck,' Max thought, but with an F instead of an S. She blinked and was out.

-

Fang awoke strapped to a white table. He could see where Max got it from now. He was getting downright sick of the color white. He was alone; a good sign. Testing the binds, he found that they were airtight. Clearly, these people were experienced at kidnapping. Or was it still kidnapping when they had parental consent? Fang's stomach chilled.

Whatever. If he wasn't truly alone, he wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of watching him squirm. He forced himself to relax, lie flat on the table, and whistle the Pokemon theme song.

The door clicked open and in walked his mother. His fake mother. No real mother would allow a small child to be experimented on and caged up like an animal. But there was also the fact that she had clothed him, fed him, raised him more-or-less for who knew how many years. Listened to his stories. The wave of emotions rioted through him, and he wished they had just sent a white coat jerk for Fang to fight.

She closed the door and locked it behind her, and walked up to the table Fang was strapped to. "Nick, sweetie, are you okay?"

Fang released a tense breath. "Just give up the charade already. I'm an elaborate experiment to you. Nothing more."

She walked up to him and squeezed his arm, concern clouding her eyes. "I know you're confused, but you need to know, Nick- you got mixed up in quite a bit of trouble. That girl you were with, that Mariah girl, she's on drugs. She's a delusional criminal. I don't know how she convinced you that she has wings but that was a lie. She started a chemical fire in the forest, and that's when child services placed her with them." Fang's mom leaned towards him. "Are you calm? We wanted to make sure you were safe in case there were drugs in your system," she gestured to the restraints.

Fang opened his mouth to call her on the lie but his breath caught. He knew Max wasn't lying to him, but she had been with child services, and her name was Mariah on file. He also knew that his own 'mother' had tased him. Did she really think he would forget about that? "I'm not dangerous," Fang said instead. "Can I see her? Ma-Mariah?"

Her shoulders dropped. "Oh Nick, I'm so glad you're doing better. You can see that girl in a few weeks, two months on the outside. She's not even in the building anymore. She went to rehab."

What could they do to Max in two months? Fang didn't know, and he didn't want to find out. _I'm coming back, Max. Hold on._ He allowed himself to be led back to the car after a fake checkup. He had to stare hard at his tennis shoes to keep from looking back at the building. If he screwed this up, he'd wake up strapped to a table again.

His mother- fake mother- handed him some files when he got into the car. "I thought you might want to see these," she said. It was the fire department records on the forest fire from last week, and the child services record for Mariah Riddle- Max's alter ego.

"Thanks," he said, thoroughly intrigued, and he didn't have to fake it. Reading about the fire, Fang had to suppress a chuckle. _'I've never taken chemistry before, but I have taken chemicals.'_

He was eager to read all about Maximum Ride, the ultimate adventurer on the run from mad scientists.

-

Max woke up in a cage. Another freaking cage. She snarled, still groggy, and slammed a fist against the door. "Damn those Erasers!"

"Um, hi."

Max turned to her left. A small blond girl was in a smaller crate next to Max. She smiled at Max, lifting her eyebrows hopefully.

"Hi," Max deadpanned, although she was a little surprised that the girl was coherent and sane. Most of them 'experiments' didn't stay that way when they were stuffed in a cage and injected every day.

"I'm Angel, it's nice to meet you. I have wings, too. I know you've escaped from the white coats before." Angel shifted to show her wings. They were beautiful and white, like a dove's or a swan's.

"How do you figure that?" Max asked.

"I can read minds."

"Really," she deadpanned. Not so sane after all.

"Really."

"Try me." Max thought about the first day of psychology, when she met Fang.

"You're thinking about Mr. Fong shaking your hand, and meeting Fang in psychology class," Angel observed correctly.

Max leaned forward. "Holy shiz, you can read minds." They could plan an escape. A decent one, as opposed to a Max one.

Angel pressed her face to the bars of her cage and mouthed the next words to Max: _Don't worry. Fang is safe and he will come back to rescue us._

 _Not if we escape first,_ Max thought hard.

Fang owed them French Fries if they did.

Before she could make any plans, the door swung open and some white coats entered, a not-bald-but-old white coat taking the lead. "A new experiment! Splendid, just splendid. Let's get started; we only have a short amount of time after all."

A shiver went down her spine, but she coiled her hands into fists. She wasn't going to let them turn her into a dissection. And if they tried?

Maximum Ride was gonna wreck maximum chaos.


End file.
